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<title>Paranoid Android by aliencurls (gracefulally)</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24190027">Paranoid Android</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/gracefulally/pseuds/aliencurls'>aliencurls (gracefulally)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Coping, M/M, Past Abuse Mention, Song Lyrics, the lost decade</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-03 00:34:25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,116</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24190027</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/gracefulally/pseuds/aliencurls</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The Lost Decade: Michael paints his nails.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Michael Guerin/Alex Manes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>39</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Paranoid Android</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Prompt: “It reminded me of you.”</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><em>“Please, could you stop the noise, I’m trying to get some rest,”</em> came the alternative rock song out of CD player Michael had cobbled together from car parts including the stereo of a 2001 Ford Escape that had been t-boned and demolished before being dropped off at the junkyard. <em>“From all the unborn chicken voices in my head.”</em></p><p>Michael was digging through a box where he kept things that made him feel closer to Alex – his old key to the toolshed, guitar picks, a small gauge that Alex had been wearing the night before he left, a pencil of cheap black eyeliner (Wet &amp; Wild brand,) a practically destroyed piece of paper that Michael had saved from Alex’s pocket with chord letters written on it, a Panic! At The Disco pin, a torn ticket for “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” and a roll of film that Michael had never had developed but he knew what the pictures were.</p><p>
  <em>“What’s that?“</em>
</p><p>Michael pulled out a bottle of cheap nail polish, black, and sat up cross-legged in the bed of his truck.</p><p>
  <em>“What’s that?“</em>
</p><p>He sniffed from all the dust of the junkyard and unscrewed the cap and brush on the nail polish. He didn’t want to go back to his trailer at Foster’s just yet. That meant more waiting and all he did these days was wait, whether it be on new of Alex or for his alien brethren to come back for him.</p><p><em>“When I am king, you will be first against the wall,”</em> declared Thom Yorke before Michael gave a gentle sneer at the sight of his dirty nails on his mangled left hand. <em>“With your opinion which is of no consequence at all…”</em></p><p>Michael sighed and sat down the polish bottle on the truck’s bed and pulled up the brush and tipped it back to watch a drop of black polish roll down to the plastic before the cap.</p><p>
  <em>“What’s that?”</em>
</p><p>Without sparing another thought on what he was doing, Michael went down with the polish brush to swipe it across the nail of his middle finger on his left hand.</p><p>
  <em>“What’s that?”</em>
</p><p>Michael continued working, painting each nail of that left hand in a very precise fashion. He was trying not to think about what the other hand was going to look like and stopped before he got to his thumb, knowing he would need to replenish his polish. He dipped the brush back into the bottle and bopped his head to the beat of the song.</p><p><em>“Ambition makes you look pretty ugly,”</em> was what Michael mouthed before he painted his thumbnail and continued to move along to the bass. <em>“Kicking, squealing Gucci little piggy!”</em></p><p>The music break gave him enough time to bounce his head from side to side as he delicately tried to hold onto the polish brush with his left thumb and forefinger, which already hurt since it’d been maybe two years since Jesse Manes took the full functionality of his left hand from him.</p><p>
  <em>“You don’t remember, you don’t remember, why don’t you remember my name?!”</em>
</p><p>Michael was in the zone as he worked even though the music was erratic. The strokes were literally painful and slow in contrast to the song.</p><p>
  <em>“Off with his head, man! Off with his head, man! Why don’t you remember my name? Oh, I guess he does–”</em>
</p><p>Focusing as the note was held, Michael continued to paint even though he got frustrated with the mistakes, little nicks of color on his skin here and there and smudge of his pointer finger’s nail. He traded hands with the brush cap and let his left rest as he got more polish with his right. He was then painting his right hand with his bum left again as the music slowed down.</p><p><em>“Rain down, rain down…”</em> Michael sang along softly as he worked on his right thumbnail. He then hissed because of a spasm in his left hand, the music continued.  <em>“Come on rain down on me.”</em></p><p>Holding onto his left wrist, Michael used his telekinesis to help soothe the spasm.</p><p>
  <em>“From a great height!”</em>
</p><p>The spasm was strong, though, and he had to concentrate harder, ignoring the work he’d done on the nails of both hands.</p><p>
  <em>“From a great height, height–”</em>
</p><p>As the spasm refused to soothe, the verse repeated.</p><p>
  <em>“Rain down, rain down… Come on, rain down on me!”</em>
</p><p>Michael winced at his hand and tried to shift his weight to move around his shoulder… and knocked over the bottle of polish.</p><p>
  <em>“From a great height! From a great height–”</em>
</p><p>Whimpering, Michael concentrated on the second vocals as the verse repeated a third time.</p><p>
  <em>“That’s it, sir, you’re leaving, the crackle of pigskin.”</em>
</p><p>Michael worked around his wrist and hand repeatedly. His ears were ringing and his telekinesis caused the volume to increase on the CD player.</p><p>
  <em>“The dust and the screaming, the yuppies networking.”</em>
</p><p>Growling in pain, Michael laid back and inadvertently knocked over his box of Alex-related items. He pushed out with his mind to keep the gauge and guitar pick from falling through holes in the bed of the truck.</p><p>
  <em>“The panic; the vomit. The panic; the vomit.”</em>
</p><p>Finally, the pain relented and Michael laid there for a moment before pawing around his jacket for a bottle of acetone as he used his mind to pulling items he could feel back into the place they belonged in the old Vans shoebox that he might or might not have taken from Max, depended on who was asking.</p><p>
  <em>“God loves his children. God loves his children, yeah–”</em>
</p><p>Sitting up, slowly, Michael finally thorough to look around after he drank from the bottle. That was when he noticed Sanders watching him from the back of the shop, wiping his own filthy hands on an already dirty cloth.</p><p>The music was blaring loud at that point and Michael couldn’t hear a word Sanders said to him so he just tilted his head and turned off the music. “Yeah?” he called out as the world went abruptly soundless.</p><p>“What are you doing for dinner?” Sanders repeated.</p><p>Michael screwed up his face and shrugged. “Uh– you know, whatever.”</p><p>Sanders nodded. “Bologna and bread are in my truck, why don’t you go get it?” he said gruffly.</p><p>Raising his brow and scrubbing the back of his neck Michael nodded. “I-I’ll do that!” he stammered out and then looked at the pitiful state of the nails on his right hand. The things you did for reminders of the ones you loved, right? At least he had plenty of nail polish remover. Enough to clean up the mess on the bed of his truck anyway, damn it.</p>
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